Attorney seeks dismissal of murder charges against Shannelle Chisholm

Says no evidence shows she was directly involved in killing of Christine Ferreira.

Madeleine List

BARNSTABLE — The attorney for a Mashpee woman indicted in the September 2015 slaying of Christine Ferreira is seeking to have the charges dismissed.

At a hearing Friday in Barnstable Superior Court, Louis Badwey, the attorney for Shannelle Chisholm, presented two motions to dismiss the indictment. One argued that the grand jury had insufficient evidence to charge her, and the second argued that the district attorney’s office had evidence that should have been presented but wasn’t.

A grand jury indicted Chisholm, 27, in July on charges of murder, intimidating a witness, kidnapping and conspiracy. Chisholm’s brother, Denzel Chisholm, 26, of West Yarmouth, and Tyrone Gomes, 31, of Hyannis, were indicted on the same charges. Denzel Chisholm also faces multiple firearms charges.

The Chisholms and Gomes were arrested in April 2016 as part of a larger investigation by local, state and federal law enforcement into the Nauti-Block street gang, a drug–trafficking organization that Denzel Chisholm allegedly led with two other associates. Investigators say the Chisholms and Gomes conspired to kill Ferreira, who was shot and stabbed at a Route 6 rest stop between exists 6 and 7, in retaliation for her testimony against gang associate Browning Mejia, who was convicted in 2011 of shooting at a car in which Ferreira was riding. Ferreira was found dead on the morning of Sept. 19, 2015, two weeks after the state Appeals Court upheld Mejia’s conviction.

Badwey argued there was no evidence proving that Shannelle Chisholm was directly involved in the killing or knew about her brother and Gomes’ plans to kill Ferreira.

Shannelle Chisholm allegedly drove her brother to the rest area where Ferreira was killed. But Badwey said the plan to kill Ferreira unfolded earlier that day between Denzel Chisholm and Gomes in a hotel room at the Econo Lodge in West Yarmouth, where Gomes was staying.

Text messages between Shannelle Chisholm and her brother around the time of the killing show the two were not together, he said. A text from Shannelle Chisholm saying, “he just passed me at Exit 7,” at around the time someone called 911 to report hearing gunshots places her away from the scene, he said.

“When you read all the facts, there is nothing to indicate that this young woman was aware a murder was about to occur,” he said.

Cape and Islands First Assistant District Attorney Brian Glenny argued that the killing was a joint venture. He noted that Gomes had said the three had done a “dry run” to the rest stop earlier that day. Shannelle Chisholm's text about Exit 7 shows she was acting as a lookout and was warning her brother about a state police trooper who had passed her on Route 6, Glenny said.

Badwey also argued that cellphone records that could have given jurors information about Shannelle Chisholm’s location on the night of Sept. 18, 2015, were not presented at the grand jury hearing.

The Cadillac she allegedly was driving that night appeared at the Econo Lodge at 9:47 p.m. and again at 9:56 p.m., he said. But a call from her cellphone at 9:52 p.m. pings a cell tower that shows her location could have been near Higgins Crowell Road or farther east.

“The grand jurors should have had this information,” he said.

Glenny said the cellphone provider Shannelle Chisholm used could only determine approximate locations in relation to cell towers. A detective testified to this during the grand jury hearing about a different call in the case, he said, adding that the same logic would apply to Shannelle Chisholm’s call.

“There’s nothing potentially exculpatory,” he said during the motion hearing.

A judge will hear a third motion to suppress cellphone records June 1 and take all three motions under advisement then, Glenny said.